'We feel our souls are European': Ukrainian villagers defy Putin and dream to the West

Nicholas Kristof

It’s average Ukrainians who are turning their country around, defying Vladimir Putin and his military, quite simply, because they dream to the West.

To understand why Ukrainians are risking war with Russia to try to pluck themselves from Moscow’s grip, I came to this village where my father grew up.

The kids here learn English and flirt in low-cut blue jeans. They listen to Rihanna, AC/DC and Taylor Swift. They have crushes on George Clooney and Angelina Jolie, watch The Simpsons and Family Guy, and play Grand Theft Auto. The school here has computers and an internet connection, which kids use to watch YouTube and join Facebook. Many expect to get jobs in Italy or Spain - perhaps even America.

‘‘We feel our souls are European,’’ Margaryta Maminchuk, 16, told me. ‘‘That is why we are part of Europe’s future.’’

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The village school, which is in my great-uncle’s old family mansion, invited me to speak to an assembly, and I asked the students how many identified as European. Nearly all raised their hands.

These villagers aren’t ‘‘important’’ and claim no sophisticated understanding of international events. But it’s average Ukrainians like them who are turning this country around, defying President Vladimir Putin of Russia and his military, quite simply, because they dream to the West.

On past visits to this village, which my family fled in the 1940s, it seemed impossibly backward. It was near the Romanian border, a world apart from Kiev, the capital, and even a decade ago many houses lacked electricity and plumbing. Horses did the ploughing. Nobody spoke English. If people went abroad it was to Russia.

Yet Ukraine has changed and opened up. Almost everyone now has electricity, plumbing and television, and many young men and women have travelled to Italy to find jobs. There is bewilderment that Poland is now so much richer than Ukraine - and resentment at Moscow for holding Ukrainians back.

I asked Margaryta, the girl with the European soul, whether she could speak Russian. Everyone in the village can speak it, she acknowledged, but she added primly: ‘‘I will not speak Russian. I am a patriot.’’

Granted, significant numbers of Ukrainians in the eastern part of the country feel deep bonds with Moscow and want more autonomy. In the short term, despite a diplomatic accord reached with Russia and Ukraine that aims to defuse the crisis, Putin may succeed in dismembering Ukraine. But, in the long run, he is both undermining his own economy and also driving Ukrainians forever into a Western orbit, as surely as the Soviets propelled Czechs to the West when they invaded in 1968.

Even here in the village, Ukrainians watch Russian television and loathe the propaganda portraying them as neo-Nazi thugs rampaging against Russian speakers. It’s not just Ukrainians who are watching, and Putin himself, but all the world.

We can make clearer that Russia would face devastating banking sanctions if it invades Ukraine. We can send more officials on visits, and Obama would warm hearts if he found a way to quote the national poet and hero, Taras Shevchenko.

We should take heart from the recognition that backing Ukraine places us on the right side of history. Ukraine has had wretched national leaders, so today leadership is coming from ordinary people who are driven by deep popular aspirations like those reverberating in my family’s ancestral village.

Without moving an inch, this village has been an ever-changing place. When my father was born, it was Austria-Hungary. Throughout his childhood, it was Romania. In the 1940s, it became the Soviet Union. In 1991, it became the Republic of Ukraine.

And, in 2014, by popular will, it is becoming part of the West.

Ukrainians hope to avoid a war with Russia that they know they would lose. But many believe deeply that their futures depend on reorienting their country to the West. That they won’t compromise on.

Ukraine faces difficult times ahead, but tectonic forces are propelling it westward. In the battle between Putin and Taylor Swift, I bet on Swift.

New York Times.

12 comments

I've lived in the West my entire life and it's overrated.

Ukraine – seriously, take the cheap gas. Your future is with Moscow.

Commenter

Moishe

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 1:41AM

I've lived half of my life in a Russian satellite state, and, half in the West,yes, life in the west is possibly and probably overrated, perhaps that is true

overrated or not, yet, this was my aspiration, and, I never regretted it,it's the aspiration of ordinary Ukrainians, and, why the Ukrainian people don't deserve their aspirations?

as for families who feel Russian, if my memory serves my correctly, West never erected walls to keep families apart, only Russia did so in the recent history, not to stop enemies coming in, to stop it's subjects leaving

and, for centuries during Russian control of Ukraine, it was Russians who stopped Ukrainians using their language, not the other way around.

lastly, Nicholas make a very valid point: in the long run, Putin is shooting himself in the foot, you can only stops peoples' aspiration for a short while

Nicholas, great article, wish all Ukrainians to achieve their aspirations, tectonic forces can't be stopped

Commenter

right side of history

Location

sydney

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 9:45PM

'We feel our souls are European'.

And what about those eastern Ukrainians whose families have lived there for generations and feel Russian?

Commenter

Dilemma

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 9:14AM

Those Russians in eastern Ukraine make up only 17% of the population. Up until now they have lived in relative harmony with the local Ukrainians. The Western governments should move to freeze ALL EU (and Swiss) assets held by Russian residents and citizens. That should lessen the power Putin has over his people as the only thing they really care about is their bank balances. The oligarchs and members of the Russian parliament have for years been squirrelling billions away on the Riviera and in banks across Europe. Germany and Italy can source their gas from elsewhere; rich Russians will not dare store their wealth in ruble-denominated assets. That's left to the peasants.

Commenter

Gekko

Location

Sydney

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 11:22AM

Is that 17 % of all Ukraine or 17 % of the population in the eastern provinces?

Commenter

Dilemma

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 2:21PM

@ Gekko - What sanctions would you suggest that the "Western Governments" impose on the (assuming) Ukrainian residents who back the original armed revolution that deposed the democratically elected Government?

Commenter

The Reaper

Location

Far west of Kiev

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 5:02PM

Correct me if I'm wrong but Ukraine very recently had a democratically elected government, but there was a peoples revolt against it which included armed rebellion because some of the people disagreed with the democratically elected Govt?

So since the Government was overthrown by an armed rebellion, the west is now upset that the unrepresentative present government is threatened by an armed rebellion?

Seems you reap what you sow. By no means do I back Russia but to me it seems that if you start backing rebellions to overthrow a government, you pick up one end of the stick, you also get the other.

Commenter

The Reaper

Location

West of Kiev

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 1:32PM

Bit like Egypt. That is another disaster but without the bullies.

Commenter

j walker

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 6:19PM

Exactly, I'm with you

Commenter

FlyingFox

Date and time

April 22, 2014, 6:45PM

To correct you Reaper, I would say that while the Maidan protestors occupied government buildings most of the deaths at Maidan Square were at the hands of Yanukovych's police. And while he was elected, it was hardly very free and fair. And when Yanukovych fled, ALL the parties in parliament, including Yanukovych's, voted to oust him and call new elections. So the farce in the East with little green men is hardly a legitimate response, as it's obviously a Russian GRU/FSB well-coordinated operation with striking overtones of Hitler 1939 (SS troops dressed as Poles attacked a German radio station, providing a pretext for war) and Milosevic 1991 (Serb minorities in Croatia stirred up with fears of fascist takeover, Yugoslav army called in to act as "peacekeepers"). Remember, this is a regime that is widely believed responsible for killing hundreds of its own citizens in 1999 in bombings that were faked to look like they were done by Chechens, giving pretext for the Second Chechen war which saw crimes against civilians as bad or worse as anything that happened in Bosnia. Then Georgia in 2008. So he's been getting away with it for years.